It’s not uncommon for people to revert to an adolescent state when they return to their childhood homes over the festive season.
It’s not uncommon for people to revert to an adolescent state when they return to their childhood homes over the festive season.
Christmas regression, as it’s known to psychologists, is what happens when we re-establish the old family dynamic and revert to the roles we played when we didn’t have adult concerns such as mortgages and children and stress-related hemorrhoids.
Please log in or register with Independent.ie for free access to this article.
Log In
New to Independent.ie? Create an account
It’s hardly surprising that we regress at this time of the year. Christmas, after all, is designed to awaken the inner child. We put on silly hats and play board games and pull crackers. Then we change into cuddly onesies, gather around the TV set to watch Home Alone and jostle for possession of the remote control.
Before long, it’s back to running gags, point-scoring, arm-wrestling and telling your little brother (who’s now 42) that you’ll time him if he sprints to the local shop for you.
It’s all fun and games for the first half of the festive season but the petulant teenage strops are never far away. Come Stephen’s Day and even the most mature among us have reverted to fully-fledged teenagers.
Here are some of the adult-escents you’re likely to encounter today:
1 The moody adult-escent: The sibling who never understood why she has to do everything in this house has finally had enough. She’s sick of cleaning up after everyone and, truth be told, she didn’t ask to be born! After a door-slamming, foot-stamping rant, she debouches to her bedroom, where she can google the symptoms of perimenopause in peace.
2 The lazy adult-escent: Do you know those teenagers who can sleep for 14 hours at a time? Well, there are plenty of grown-ups who can give them a run for their money over the festive season. The lazy adult-escent takes to the couch shortly after dinner on Christmas Day and spends the next 36 hours in a horizontal state of liqueur-soaked indolence. This is the sibling who shirks all responsibility while sleeping until noon and who, despite being 45-years-old, still asks his mother to make him turkey sandwiches.
3 The preening adult-escent: Teenage girls derive untold joys from their make-up bags, and often spend hours in front of the mirror as they try out new ‘looks’ and experiment with every possible shade and texture of lipstick. Most of them grow out of this phase but that doesn’t mean that they’re completely beyond it.
Give a grown woman the right Charlotte Tilbury box set for Christmas and you’ll see an adolescent enthusiasm for makeovers that is vaguely terrifying. As everyone else gathers around the TV to watch the Christmas classics, she gets busy with her new 12-shade eyeshadow palette and brush set. She’s trying to achieve a smokey eye à la Mila Kunis. Six glasses of wine and two films later, and she looks more like Marilyn Manson.
4 The rebellious adult-escent: There are a few points in an Irish adult’s life when they can drink with complete and utter impunity: weddings, St Patrick’s Day and, of course, St Stephen’s Day. Still, there are always going to be those who turn into wild horses with the slightest bit of free rein. The rebellious adult-escent approaches St Stephen’s Day in the same spirit with which an 18-year-old embraces the Leaving Cert holiday. Sure, he might have male pattern baldness, occupational burnout and negative equity, but that’s not going to stop him from staying in the pub until closing and stealing a traffic cone on the way home.
5 The impulsive adult-escent: Teenagers aren’t exactly known for their rational decision-making. Erratic and emotional, they can easily get carried away with excitement and engage in risky and regrettable behaviour. However, before you reprimand your teenagers for their impulsive behaviour today, it might be worth taking a long, hard look at their 50-something adult-escent aunt who has spent the better part of St Stephen’s Day novelty-seeking in front of her laptop. The sales have started, and she wants bargains. And while she knows she may eventually regret buying a 12-in-1 vegetable slicer, a ski suit and a flight to Thailand, she’s not going to let a discount of 70pc pass her by.
6 The disenchanted adult-escent: There’s a panoply of films on the telly and a cornucopia of food in the fridge, but the disenchanted adult-escent is ‘soooooooo bored’ today. It’s cabin fever, of course, but she isn’t helping herself. Does she want to go for a walk? Not really. How about a film? No, seen them all. What about a pint in the local? Nah. Instead she mopes around the house in a state of near paralytic ennui, before going to her bedroom to sulk.
Source: Read Full Article
Home » Analysis & Comment » Katie Byrne: 'Why do grown adults turn into petulant teenagers on St Stephen's Day?'
Katie Byrne: 'Why do grown adults turn into petulant teenagers on St Stephen's Day?'
It’s not uncommon for people to revert to an adolescent state when they return to their childhood homes over the festive season.
It’s not uncommon for people to revert to an adolescent state when they return to their childhood homes over the festive season.
Christmas regression, as it’s known to psychologists, is what happens when we re-establish the old family dynamic and revert to the roles we played when we didn’t have adult concerns such as mortgages and children and stress-related hemorrhoids.
Please log in or register with Independent.ie for free access to this article.
Log In
New to Independent.ie? Create an account
It’s hardly surprising that we regress at this time of the year. Christmas, after all, is designed to awaken the inner child. We put on silly hats and play board games and pull crackers. Then we change into cuddly onesies, gather around the TV set to watch Home Alone and jostle for possession of the remote control.
Before long, it’s back to running gags, point-scoring, arm-wrestling and telling your little brother (who’s now 42) that you’ll time him if he sprints to the local shop for you.
It’s all fun and games for the first half of the festive season but the petulant teenage strops are never far away. Come Stephen’s Day and even the most mature among us have reverted to fully-fledged teenagers.
Here are some of the adult-escents you’re likely to encounter today:
1 The moody adult-escent: The sibling who never understood why she has to do everything in this house has finally had enough. She’s sick of cleaning up after everyone and, truth be told, she didn’t ask to be born! After a door-slamming, foot-stamping rant, she debouches to her bedroom, where she can google the symptoms of perimenopause in peace.
2 The lazy adult-escent: Do you know those teenagers who can sleep for 14 hours at a time? Well, there are plenty of grown-ups who can give them a run for their money over the festive season. The lazy adult-escent takes to the couch shortly after dinner on Christmas Day and spends the next 36 hours in a horizontal state of liqueur-soaked indolence. This is the sibling who shirks all responsibility while sleeping until noon and who, despite being 45-years-old, still asks his mother to make him turkey sandwiches.
3 The preening adult-escent: Teenage girls derive untold joys from their make-up bags, and often spend hours in front of the mirror as they try out new ‘looks’ and experiment with every possible shade and texture of lipstick. Most of them grow out of this phase but that doesn’t mean that they’re completely beyond it.
Give a grown woman the right Charlotte Tilbury box set for Christmas and you’ll see an adolescent enthusiasm for makeovers that is vaguely terrifying. As everyone else gathers around the TV to watch the Christmas classics, she gets busy with her new 12-shade eyeshadow palette and brush set. She’s trying to achieve a smokey eye à la Mila Kunis. Six glasses of wine and two films later, and she looks more like Marilyn Manson.
4 The rebellious adult-escent: There are a few points in an Irish adult’s life when they can drink with complete and utter impunity: weddings, St Patrick’s Day and, of course, St Stephen’s Day. Still, there are always going to be those who turn into wild horses with the slightest bit of free rein. The rebellious adult-escent approaches St Stephen’s Day in the same spirit with which an 18-year-old embraces the Leaving Cert holiday. Sure, he might have male pattern baldness, occupational burnout and negative equity, but that’s not going to stop him from staying in the pub until closing and stealing a traffic cone on the way home.
5 The impulsive adult-escent: Teenagers aren’t exactly known for their rational decision-making. Erratic and emotional, they can easily get carried away with excitement and engage in risky and regrettable behaviour. However, before you reprimand your teenagers for their impulsive behaviour today, it might be worth taking a long, hard look at their 50-something adult-escent aunt who has spent the better part of St Stephen’s Day novelty-seeking in front of her laptop. The sales have started, and she wants bargains. And while she knows she may eventually regret buying a 12-in-1 vegetable slicer, a ski suit and a flight to Thailand, she’s not going to let a discount of 70pc pass her by.
6 The disenchanted adult-escent: There’s a panoply of films on the telly and a cornucopia of food in the fridge, but the disenchanted adult-escent is ‘soooooooo bored’ today. It’s cabin fever, of course, but she isn’t helping herself. Does she want to go for a walk? Not really. How about a film? No, seen them all. What about a pint in the local? Nah. Instead she mopes around the house in a state of near paralytic ennui, before going to her bedroom to sulk.
Source: Read Full Article